


Bitten

by DashFlintceschi



Series: Illnesses/Disabilities Alphabet Challenge [18]
Category: You Me At Six
Genre: Gen, I hate myself for this, I'm going to go cry now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 06:27:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1847836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DashFlintceschi/pseuds/DashFlintceschi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max wakes up from a night of drinking with a pain in his neck, he doesn't realise why, though, until it's too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bitten

**Author's Note:**

> R is for Rabies.

When Max wakes up from a heavy night of drinking with a pain on the back of his neck, he thinks nothing of it. He’s always falling over and hurting himself when he drinks. He still doesn’t put the pieces together when he gets to the kitchen, and Dan looks at him through bleary, hung-over eyes.

“There was a bat in your room, just chilling out on the curtain rail. I encouraged it out the window with a book and closed the window for you,” he tells him hoarsely, and Max nods in thanks as he makes tea. None of them think anything of it, the bat was on the curtain rail, nowhere near him.

They all quickly forget about the bat, and the painkillers Max takes for his hang-over take away the pain in his neck, and he forgets about that, too. Josh finally makes the connection when, thirty-one hours later, Max becomes agitated, snapping at all of them for stupid little things, like when he snarls at Chris for ‘breathing too loud’. This, coupled with the fact that Max keeps fidgeting and jumping up to peer out of the living room window as though he thinks someone’s watching them, gives Josh his suspicions, but he’s not sure until Matt offers Max a beer, and he freaks out, saliva running out of the corner of his mouth and down his chin.

“We need to get Max to the hospital,” he insists, and the three of them look at him like he’s mad, while Max is too busy alternating between freaking out about the beer, and going to the window to peer out again. “I think that bat bit him, he’s acting like he’s got rabies,” Dan turns ashen at that.

“Rabies is fatal once symptoms start showing,” he whispers, and they all look at Max with heartbroken eyes. He’s even worse, now, pacing the room constantly, an endless flow of saliva trailing from his mouth as he rubs at the back of his neck.

Matt approaches him cautiously, flinching when Max jumps harshly at Matt’s touch.

“Come on, Max, we’re going to go out, ok?” He tells him gently, fighting back tears.

“We can’t go out there, they’re out there,” Max argues deliriously, and Matt sighs.

“It’s alright, they’re not watching right now, we can sneak out past them, and we’ll go somewhere safe, where they can’t find us,” Matt soothes, and Max nods, looking around wildly and muttering to himself as Matt leads him out to Chris’ car.

When they get to the hospital, the doctor runs blood tests and confirms what they were scared of. Max has rabies, and now that he’s started showing symptoms, all the doctors can do is make him comfortable until he inevitably dies in the next two to ten days. They put him in a room by himself and sedate him, giving him fluids intravenously, since he reacts so badly to liquid, but the nurse tells them that hydrophobia is a common symptom of rabies. The doctor tells them they can stay with Max as long as they want, visiting times don’t apply to the families of terminal patients.

In the end, Max holds out for eleven days, managing to say goodbye to his friends and his distraught parents in the one, five minute snatch of lucidity he has in those eleven days. His parents stop visiting on the ninth day, when even the sedatives stop working, and Max starts screaming constantly as he’s plagued by endless, terrifying hallucinations. When he dies, he’s screaming in terror, choking on the blood from his bitten tongue. They’re all so glad for the screaming to be over, that it takes a few seconds for any of them to register that he’s dead.

It takes them a long time to get over the trauma of Max’s final moments, and they never get the image of him when he died from their minds.

**Author's Note:**

> I killed Max. I hate myself. I'm going to go cry in the corner now. I was originally going to do rheumatoid arthritis for R, but my brain kept bugging me about the fact that every illness or disability on the list either wasn't fatal, or I pulled them back from the brink at the last second, so I should do one where one of them dies. I regret that decision now. This was written as quickly as possible because I hate myself for killing Max, but once I started, I wouldn't let myself just leave it. I am so sorry I made you read this.


End file.
